The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom took pretty much everyone by surprise. I am a huge fan of the series and it even featured on My Top 5 Super Nintendo Games List. However, before the recent Nintendo Direct, I did actually have a feeling that we would see a new Legend of Zelda game. Yet, I would have put money on it being a port of Wind Waker HD or Twilight Princess HD or even both of them. I thought that those two games getting a port on the Nintendo Switch made a lot of sense, they are arguably the only two big titles from the Wii U that could and should be ported to the Switch.
Instead, we are getting a whole new adventure, and this time, Zelda is the one saving the day. Strange rifts have been showing up all over Hyrule and people have been disappearing into them, including Link who was trying to save Zelda when he was taken! This leads Zelda on a quest to find out what these are, save Link, and save the people of Hyrule. Zelda is not alone, she is joined by a fairy called Tri and she has a weapon called The Tri Rod and this is where the game’s “gimmick” comes into play. Zelda can use this Tri Rod to create echoes of things. So she can create an echo of a bed to make a bridge or water to make it so she can swim up a small cliff. She can even make echoes of enemies to fight for her. It looks like it is going to be something that is a lot of fun to use and also leads to some fun puzzles.
I do wonder though if Zelda will be given any other weapons as while I love the idea of the Tri Rod, it would be cool to be able to have her use a sword. They have gone for the same kind of art style as they did with the Nintendo Switch remake of The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening and I could not be any more happy about that. This is an art style that just has a ton of charm to it and the way Zelda kind of waddles as she runs is hilarious. It does make me think about the possibility of The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom potentially being a sequel to Link’s Awakening. To be honest, it does not matter if it is, but it would be kind of cool. I suspected that they may use this art style to remake A Link to the Past, but getting a whole new game out of it is even cooler.
This is not the first time we have gotten to play as Princess Zelda. She took center stage in one of those god-awful Phillips CD-I Legen of Zelda games and she is playable in the Smash Bros series as well as the two Hyrule Warriors games. However, this feels like the first time we actually get to go on a proper Zelda style adventure where we play as the titular damsel in distress who is now our heroine! As well as the game, Nintendo also announced that a new Nintendo Switch Lite console would be released which looked really cool. Hopefully, there will be some kind of collector’s edition for this. Plus, they have to do an Amiibo as it would be great to have one to go next to the Amiibo from Link’s Awakening!
The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom is scheduled for release on September 26th and I for one cannot wait to get my hands on it! Be sure to leave your thoughts on the game in the comments section.